9 Lana’s Party #5
I told him I could go sleep on the couch, too, and he laughed and said, “There’s no way you think I feel uncomfortable.
” I shook my head, and we both got into bed at the same time.
We lay there a few minutes with the lights off before Naya’s shouting reached us from the other end of the hall.
Could anything happen to make this weirder?
Ross and I stared at the ceiling while Will started ramming her so hard that the bed frame was striking the wall.
Great.
I tried to close my eyes. But it only made me remember Ross kissing me. Why had I liked it so much? Was it just because it had been so many weeks since I’d kissed someone? Yeah, that was probably it.
Ross sighed. Was he thinking the same thing as me? Or was he regretting what he’d done? Had he offered to sleep on the sofa because he didn’t want to be lying there with me? Was he regretting ever letting me stay at his apartment?
Or was I overanalyzing everything?
It was strange how he was close enough to touch, and yet he felt so far away.
And every fiber of my body wanted him. I didn’t understand where that longing had come from.
I wanted to reach over, grab his hand, pull him on top of me.
I wanted to tell him to run his finger along my lip again, to kiss me and squeeze my thigh and press his hand into the small of my back, to…
No. I couldn’t do that to Monty.
But you and Monty had a deal, remember?
That was true.
I thought it over.
We had a deal.
A deal that was custom-made for situations like this. He had said that himself. It was fine. Ross and I hadn’t even had sex. It was mostly just a kiss. But that kiss—had it been just a kiss?
I took a deep breath, turned, and looked at him. “Ross?” I called softly.
“Yeah?”
“You remember what I told you about my relationship?”
“Yeah.”
I paused. I couldn’t believe I was about to say it. I felt as if I were standing on the verge of a cliff. My lips were tingling. My whole body was telling me, Do it .
“About how it was OK if I found someone and, you know, did things with them…”
“Yeah.”
He turned and stopped me before I could say more, grabbing the back of my neck and turning me toward him.
His leg rubbed against mine. He pressed his thumb into my lips.
Then he bent over and kissed me, but differently than before.
As if it were a secret he hadn’t wanted to reveal to me until now.
Without me telling them to, my hands climbed his back to his shoulders, hugging him and pulling him in tight.
Any distance between us was intolerable.
I wanted his chest, his thighs, to touch mine, and now they did.
His legs were between my legs, his mouth on my mouth.
He must have wanted the same, because he grabbed my hip and pulled me into him.
I’d never felt this before. Never. Not with anyone.
My head was spinning. I worried I might faint at any second.
But the urge to kiss him was more powerful.
I arched my back and he pulled away to take a breath and climbed fully on top of me.
I felt his fingers lace through my hair and grip it tight as he sucked at my lips, my chin, my throat.
I reached down and pulled up on his T-shirt.
He knew what I wanted, grabbed the neck of it, and pulled it off with one hand.
I stroked his shoulders, his chest, his stomach, his ribs, his back.
His skin was burning, and my fingers on it were like firebrands.
When they passed over his tattoo, I noticed the skin there was a little rougher, and I tried to look, but he guided my hand away.
I tried not to groan as he rubbed me down there, over my clothes, careful, taking his time, but making absolutely certain that I knew how much he wanted me.
I was a mass of trembling and bated breath.
I couldn’t take it anymore. And when he gripped the bottom of my sweatshirt, I could see the pleading in his eyes.
I’m dying to do this , they said. But I won’t unless you tell me it’s OK.
And there was nothing else I wanted in this entire world.
I nodded and he pulled off my sweatshirt and the T-shirt I had underneath, and I felt the cold air on my bare skin.
His hand was rubbing my hip now, sending chills up my spine.
As he leaned in to kiss my neck, I stroked the back of his head, reaching back with the other hand to hold onto the headboard. I closed my eyes and let myself go.
My memories of that night became a treasure to keep under lock and key.
I remember his head between my legs, the way he exhaled through his teeth as I placed my own hand between his, how he was so nervous he tore the condom, then took out another one and stretched me out, his breath on my neck as my hands sank in his hair.
I remember him grabbing my hips, turning me around, how I pressed my hands against the wall to push back into him, how he sighed and caressed me as I got on top of him, how he smiled as his forehead pressed into mine and he tensed up, how he held me between my rib cage and my hips as he finished…
It was perfect. So perfect that when he fell asleep, I tried to keep my eyes open because I didn’t want the night to ever end.